Fiction Podcast: T. C. Boyle Reads Donald Barthelme

On this month’s fiction podcast, T. C. Boyle reads two short stories by Donald Barthelme. In “Game,” two military men are, owing to some ambiguous “oversight,” abandoned in an underground bunker during the Cold War. In “The School,” a teacher describes how his grade-school classroom has been affected by a string of tragedies. (George Saunders, in an essay called “Rise, Baby, Rise!” from the collection “The Braindead Megaphone,” wrote about why “The School” is such a perfect short story.)

Here is the narrator of “Game” describing his absurd circumstances:

Shotwell and I watch the console. Shotwell and I live under the ground and watch the console. If certain events take place upon the console, we are to insert our keys in the appropriate locks and turn our keys. Shotwell has a key and I have a key. If we turn our keys simultaneously the bird flies—certain switches are activated and the bird flies. But the bird never flies. In one hundred thirty-three days the bird has not flown. Meanwhile Shotwell and I watch each other. We each wear a .45 and if Shotwell behaves strangely I am supposed to shoot him. If I behave strangely Shotwell is supposed to shoot me. We watch the console and think about shooting each other and think about the bird. Shotwell’s behavior with the jacks is strange. Is it strange? I do not know. Perhaps he is merely a selfish bastard, perhaps his character is flawed, perhaps his childhood was twisted. I do not know.

Boyle says that Barthelme is one of his heroes for his “sense of humor and the oddity of the situations he comes up with.” Talking with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, he discusses the stories’ comedic elements, their relation to Barthelme’s other work, and Barthelme’s influence on his own writing. You can listen to the episode above, or by downloading the podcast for free from iTunes.

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